The fourth annual student-run Future of Sustainable Investing Conference (FSIcon) will take place tomorrow (Friday, March 10), spread out around Brown’s campus with a host of talks and panels. This entirely student-led event brings together investors, professionals from local and national for-profit businesses, sustainability professionals, industry and policy experts, academics and students for a full-day summit exploring current and future investment practices. Presentations will explore three themes: high-impact sectors, emerging risks and opportunities, and investing and policy. Attendees will be challenged to think critically about how investing can shape our future, and the day’s event will culminate in a career fair with Bain Capital and Fidelity Investments and a light reception at IBES (85 Waterman St).
For more information, check out FSIcon’s Meet Our Speakers webpage, and register for the event here.
Opening Keynote Spotlight: Jochen Wermuth (‘92)
Climate impact investor Jochen Wermuth (‘92) will kick off Friday’s event with FSIcon’s opening keynote address at approximately 9 AM (81 Waterman St: Sayles Hall, Main Green; available for live stream here). Boston-born Jochen will return to campus this week after having graduated magna cum laude from the University in 1992, with degrees in math and economics.
Wermuth is dedicated to positively impacting climate by overseeing investments of family wealth via the Green Growth Funds and Germany’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, KENFO, serving as a member of its supervisory boards’ investment strategy advisory committee. He is dedicated to studying and shaping the “Green Industrial Revolution,” which, in his view, lies at the intersection of a number of different industries, which reinforce each other in the transition to a circular economy: energy, transportation, fintech, agroforestry, and artificial intelligence.
Jochen had a hand in building DivestInvest, with over €30 trillion committed from asset owners to divest from fossil fuels and into climate solutions. He has served as a member of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the family office network TONIIC’s 100%ers, and the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC); has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Growth Company advisory board; and has been Chair of Young President Organization (YPO) Gold Berlin. Jochen strongly supports Greenpeace, Transparency International, German Zero, #Berlin2030 climate-neutral plebiscite, AllRise, and Germany’s State Opera as well as its Liberal and Green Parties. In his free time, Jochen likes to run, swim, cycle, dance, sing, and listen to music.
All of us at IBES and FSIcon are honored to have Jochen back on campus. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Jochen Wermuth (‘92) at tomorrow’s FSIcon!
Closing Keynote Spotlights: L. Hunter Lovins and John Fullerton
L. Hunter Lovins will wrap up the day by delivering FSIcon’s closing keynote address. Lovins serves as President of Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS), which helps companies, communities, and countries implement more regenerative practices profitably. Hunter is a professor of sustainable business management at Bard College MBA and Fordham University, teaching entrepreneurship and coaching social enterprises around the world. Also serving as Managing Partner of NOW Partners, she too works as Chief Impact Officer of Change Finance, an impact investing firm. A board member of Aquion and several nonprofits, Lovins has 45 years of experience in climate policy, energy, agriculture, and sustainable development and resilience. She has briefed the UN, the US Congress, and the Pentagon, and has served as a consultant to companies like the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Unilever, Shell Global oil, and Walmart, as well as sustainability champions Interface, Patagonia, and Clif Bar. She has authored 16 books including the recent release A Finer Future: Creating an Economy in Service to Life, which won a Nautilus Award. Having received dozens of honors, Lovins has been awarded the European Sustainability Pioneer award and the Right Livelihood Award. She was recognized by TIME magazine as a Millennium Hero of the Planet, and called “the green business icon” by Newsweek.
We are thrilled to have the Green Business Icon joining us here at IBES. Make sure to catch her closing keynote address alongside John Fullerton at 3 PM in IBES’ Carmichael Auditorium (85 Waterman St, room 130), with a light reception to follow.
John Fullerton is an economist, impact investor, writer, and some have said, philosopher. Expanding upon the work of many, he is the architect of Regenerative Economics, first conceived in his 2015 booklet, Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Patterns and Principles Will Shape the New Economy.
After a fruitful 20-year career on Wall Street where he served as a Managing Director of what he refers to as “the old JPMorgan,” John listened to a persistent inner voice and walked away in 2001 with no concrete plans but a lot of questions. Just a few months later, he witnessed 9/11 firsthand. The questions that had arisen for him crystallized into his life’s work with the creation of the Capital Institute in 2010, where his work reflects the rising evolutionary shift in consciousness from Modern Age thinking to Integral Age thinking. The Capital Institute is dedicated to the bold reimagination of economics and finance in service to life.
During his career on Wall Street, John managed numerous capital markets and derivatives businesses around the globe and was JPMorgan’s Oversight Committee Representative who managed the rescue of Long Term Capital Management in 2008. Finally, Fullerton serves as Chief Investment Officer for Lab Morgan before retiring from the firm. A committed impact investor, John is the Chairman of New Day Enterprises, PBC, the co-founder of Grasslands, LLC, a board member of the Savory Institute and Stone Acres Farm, and an advisor to numerous sustainability initiatives.
We are excited to have John's recent addition to the FSIcon program! Make sure to catch his closing keynote address alongside Hunter Lovins at 3 PM in IBES' Carmichael Auditorium (85 Waterman St, room 130), with a light reception to follow.